The date on the calendar was marked the same as ever, but ashamed as she was of this lapse, Tailmon couldn't for the life of her remember what it meant.
Obviously, she knew the date itself, just as well as she ever had. August 1st, what was so important about August 1st? It had to be something regarding their adventure, but… what was it?
Not that she had ever been good with human calendars – and dates three years before she even had any need to keep track of it, any inkling of how it matched up with the digital one? They just couldn't be – wait, she recalled something, a date seen through a window on the day Vamdemon was defeated; August 3, 1999.
"The last time I saw Wizarmon alive."
The white cat peered at her gloved paw, lifting up one of her claws. "So if Vamdemon died on the third, then the night before was the second… The last conversation I had with him, the night I found my destiny."
She was still regretful about it – rude as his earlier actions may have been, it was her last conversation with the wizard longer than a cry of "catch!" and a few last words – and she wished she hadn't started out so hostile.
Besides, he redeemed himself.
Tailmon kept looking back, trying to remember the day before… Death Meramon beaten, an attack on Tokyo, her first meeting with the girl she now called her partner. Kind, sweet, simply adorable – strong and bitter as she was, she honestly didn't think even she could've made it through Wizarmon's death without Hikari.
The catlike digimon lifted another claw, going back one day further.
"August 1st… the one they were talking about. So that was the time we were sent through the gate, right?" It was before her freedom, before her life – and she couldn't help but snicker at that battle, how badly she had crushed all the chosen's digimon. (And on those more light-hearted days, she still teased Gomamon about it.)
But that wasn't important enough, was it? Wait, if the chosen had gone through the gate so soon after… The adult-level feline vaguely recalled Koushirou saying something about differences in time, remembered how quickly the dark masters seized power…
Tailmon lifted her final claw. It must've been the day they entered the digital world in the first place. At least that was figured out.
But… August 1st meant something else to her as well – if it was the day of their memorials, then it was the day of yet another bittersweet memory.
And she could still remember the tears in her eyes as Wizarmon's ghost faded away from her, these past two years hadn't weakened her sadness in the slightest. Instead, hiding her eyes, she suddenly realized it wasn't just memories of tears she felt against her fur.
"So, you really are leaving now, Tailmon?" The mage asked, questioning yet knowing, still unwilling to accept this without at least confirmation – and he had to at least say goodbye.
"It's not like I have a choice." The ever-searching, heart-wounded digimon answered, noticing the look of sympathetic confusion in her new friend's eyes. "Vamdemon is master, and if he says we're going to the other side of Server, that's just how it is."
"And you called my life lonely…"
"What was that?" Her eyes had regained their fullness, if only for a moment, round objects without even the slightest narrowness of hatred.
"Traveling like that, just place to place, leaving whenever some master tells you to… You took it upon yourself to help my loneliness, didn't you?" Wizarmon asked, his brown-gloved hand reaching down, stroking the side of Tailmon's ear.
"D-don't do that!" The feline answered, blushing through her fur. "There's no point… any more closeness will just make us miss each other more."
"You'd miss me?"
"I didn't mean… don't get any funny ideas!" She answered, raising her leonine claws, black pointed out at the wizard, almost trying to slash away her feelings… "It's just…"
Tailmon noticed Wizarmon taking a knee before her, the wizard's dark-blue cape falling across his back. "You may have to serve Vamdemon, but that doesn't mean I have anything else to do. And a digimon like you deserves some minions…"
"You really mean—"
"At least I won't have to see my one friend leave this way – unless that's what you want."
The cat shook her head. "No, of course not… you sure about this? For all intents and purposes you'll basically be serving Vamdemon…" Tailmon jumped onto a well-placed sandbank, figuring it right to seem higher to take his allegiance, accidentally gazing into and losing herself in the other digimon's sorrowful, well-hidden, yet beautiful green eyes.
The wizard pondered, considering this, then throwing it away. "So be it. For now, it may make no difference -- but when you at last find her and meet your destiny, I'll still be fighting on your side."
Tailmon wandered the streets of Tokyo some more, eyes looking so deep into the past she hadn't the slightest clue where she was headed. "Strange, that memory always slipped my mind. Even back when he was alive, I never recalled that part of my past, though I don't doubt that it occurred." Her thoughts zoomed to her first meeting with the wizard digimon -- and her last, when she finally remembered the first. "But if this much has been lost, what more have I forgotten?"
The feline looked up suddenly, ears twitching, as if an attack was coming her way. There was none, of course – even the local anti-digimon bigots would just think her an odd-looking cat, and those who did recognize her would hopefully know about how she broke the siege of Tokyo.
Of course, there were no foes around -- but to her surprise, she found herself at the door of a very familiar TV tower.
"The place he gave his life for me… and the only place he ever managed to speak from beyond the grave, around this time of year at that. If I can find him anywhere, it's here."
She wasn't thinking clearly; on a more rational, less memory-driven day, she would have dismissed these actions as a mix of sentimental and insane.
"Hey, some cat's on the ground floor!" An unfamiliar voice shouted, she presumed one of the station's employees – shouted from within his office, yes, only in shock; but it somehow echoed into her sensitive ears all the same.
"Let me see that…" A slightly more familiar voice answered, peering over a group of monitors in the office far from Tailmon's eyes. "It's fine."
"Fine? There's a stray cat in the building! This can't be good!"
The man's coworker let out a distant, nostalgic sigh. "You've only been here a few months, right?"
He nodded, as the other continued. "A couple years ago, around this time of year, there were a ton of weird glitches with all our equipment, strange shadow showing up everywhere. I'm not the superstitious type, but honestly, looking at it --" he lowered his voice conspiratorially, as if to say something that had been known to all, but forbidden to mention, "we're all pretty sure it was a ghost."
"A ghost?"
"Yeah." Someone else said, confirming. "And then a cat that looked exactly like this one wandered in, and we haven't seen the ghost since."
This part of the conversation hadn't reached Tailmon, who kept walking around, retracing her steps – hoping what, some switch would activate and Wizarmon be summoned?
"So you think she got rid of it?"
"She might've saved this station… either way, there's no point getting her angry for no reason."
Said cat continued her wandering, tears in her eyes, stepping over the spot in the floor his ghost materialized, a grief-filled paw held out in the exact same way she had tried to grab Wizarmon's hand. In a fit of desperation, she rushed over to the very window the blue-caped sorcerer had faded through, ended up stopped from a fatal plunge by what was probably the same piece of glass she ran to and cried against last time.
"Will we see him again?"
"I'm sure we will, Hikari."
As if Taichi had any way to know, any knowledge about Wizarmon she wouldn't – as if the two had known each other for more than 24 hours day, and as if half the time they spent interacting wasn't the gogglehead accusing the mage of serving Vamdemon.
"Though it's not like I didn't make him practically do exactly that…"
Tailmon cried by the window some more, hoping desperately for a ghost that would not come, his ghost's "be careful" and his final "I don't have any regrets" still in the forefront of her thoughts.
But staying would only make her even sadder – and if a living Hikari couldn't come while she waited forever, how the heck could a dead Wizarmon?
Tailmon looked particularly wounded this day, and she hadn't even taken off her gloves since the morning's meeting with Vamdemon.
"Tailmon? What's wrong?" Wizarmon asked, concern in his eyes.
"Nothing." The white cat answered defiantly, not trying to offender her wizard friend – no, more as though she was defying reality itself.
Then again, there was a lot worth defying. The chosen children had smashed Etemon, only to disperse and disappear just as Vamdemon took half of Server.
In short, if the rumors were correct – then the one she had been searching for had already disappeared, and she was too far in Vamdemon's grasp to look for her. Besides, dammit, that blood-whip hurt!
"It doesn't seem like nothing. But if you're like this, I won't press the matter."
Tailmon sighed. Yes, the wounds hurt, yes, sometimes it could help to share pain, yes, he'd understand better… understand what? That she was so much in Vamdemon's control that he could treat her like this without a second thought?
Such incredible weakness, and even he wouldn't stay by her side. So she kept the gloves on, though she so badly needed the wizard's comfort.
"Still, if he's been hurting you—"
"He hasn't!" Tailmon protested, knowing full well what Wizarmon would do if he knew. Orders to stand down were orders – but really, she couldn't trust him not to try andn avenge her scars, getting himself killed.
"Fine, fine." The wizard answered, pausing, looking for another avenue of discussion… but how could he comfort her, when he didn't even 'know' she was hurt?
It didn't happen so confusingly, though. Just that Tailmon, for all her pretensions of strength and defiance, ended up crying her eyes out, managing only the control of hiding the source of her tears.
And then, in one sweet, comforting instant, the cat found herself held in Wizarmon's soft glove, her fur softly petted, the wizard's golden sun-staff lying harmlessly on the ground.
Even if she had missed her light, even if it her search itself had only led her away from finding it, even if she'd serve Vamdemon forever, there was still one comforting thought… through all this darkness, she'd have Wizarmon by her side.
The cat motioned the wizard's arm towards his face, deeply, gratefully kissing his small, grey section of revealed cheek.
At the same time, the two let their words slip, thinking of that bond of mutual gratitude and immense friendship, a bond that managed to endure and even strengthen amidst Vamdemon's harsh, brutal barracks – "I love you."
Tailmon opened her eyes, walking down another Tokyo sidewalk, pondering the implications of her latest just-regained memory. "I… loved him? Wait, of course I did – at least it didn't die unspoken."
The cat let out a weak smile, but still, remembering so many bits of her happiness with Wizarmon – it only made his permanent absence hurt all the more. Not that it wasn't comforting at the time, of course, not that she wasn't glad to have it even now; but once she opened her eyes, the pain flooded back all the same.
And what the heck was going on with her memories? Sure, if Vamdemon's torture could make her forget even that she had been searching for Hikari, make her need re-explained her first meeting with her love… that might explain it. But why did they flood back now? More importantly, Tailmon wondered… what else had she forgotten?
Still, she had her thoughts about her, and realized she wasn't the only one who had been evil… Ken's trauma was more on the side of the tormentor than the victim, of course – and he was ten times more wounded by what he had gone through, memory issues and all. At the same time, but for a botched assassination attempt, she would've been the same. So unless (or perhaps even if, Vamdemon's victims need to stick together) Ken was in another spiral of depression… it could really, really help to talk to him on this matter.
After some more walking, she arrived at a certain apartment in Tamachi and spotted a both bizarre and familiar green insect climbing quickly up the walls.
"Tailmon?" The insect asked, slowly making his way up the stairs, leaving the "why" as to her sudden appearance unasked, but understood all the same.
The feline smirked, sunlight sparkling off her black claw – the original answer was simple enough, but toying with him would be fun. "Well, I did used to be an assassin in the service of Vamdemon."
"I won't let you get to him! Sticky net!" The ten-legged "worm" held his legs tightly to the apartment's wall, turned his mouth, and shot a white net of string towards Tailmon. The cat jumped into the air, twirling up and over the attack, and landed with ease on a second story windowsill.
"Let's race. Ken lives if I win."
The vaccine-type digimon laughed, and after a few seconds of quick slithering, but not quick enough to match Tailmon's agile, expert, near-perfect jumping, Hikari's partner leaped through the window and crashed headfirst into a dark wall in the former Kaiser's room.
Wormmon, for his part, climbed through in defeat seconds later, relieved his "opponent" had only been joking – and then, in a status the denizens of the internet would only describe as "pwned," slinked away.
Tailmon had come to see his partner, after all, not him… and eavesdropping was rude. (Sneaking into people's houses through the window uninvited was rude too, admittedly – but he was sure Tailmon had her reasons.)
Ken Ichijouji looked up from the computer, turning back from his earlier attempt to forget his sorrowful memories amidst the addicting cesspool of the internet, his gaze falling on Tailmon.
"If I may ask, why did you come here?"
"First off, how familiar are you with the journeys of Taichi's group of chosen children?"
"Somewhat. They mostly filled me in on the specifics last year." He paused, noticing Tailmon's unabated sense of 'this isn't helping,' as though his information was completely meaningless. "Including the part regarding the eighth child, Vamdemon, and Wizarmon."
"So you see why I came here? We're the same…"
Ken nodded understandingly. "Yeah... Let me guess, August 1st and you're having memory issues?"
"Exactly." She paused for a while, the two wondering the same thing: With all the similarities of their pasts, why had they so seldom even talked to each other? "How the heck do you make it through these days?"
"Like I do any better than you? I've spent days comatose, quite literally lost in thought, and I still can't remember anything helpful."
"Yeah…"
"I didn't awaken until Wormmon came back." Ken finished, motioning for the insect on the balcony, happily letting him slither into his arms. "And this time, I've given him the kindness he deserves."
"If Hikari turned around a half-second later… thanks." Tailmon turned back, leaping out of the apartment, racing back to Odaiba – she couldn't let Wizarmon's sacrifice go to waste!
The sky seemed pitch-black when Tailmon finally caught up with Hikari, despite the fact that it was only slightly past two o'clock – but if there were any days bizarreness in the environment was comforting, this had to rank first among them.
And besides, compared to being whipped into cold-hearted, lonely subservience by Vamdemon, a freak eclipse was nothing.
Especially not when she had Hikari.
"Where'd you go, Tailmon? Disappearing like that, and on such an important day, do you want me to worry?"
"Sorry. Had a few sadder memories to think about…"
Hikari nodded, petting the cat digimon lightly, Tailmon answering it with a deep, contented purr, as she was scooped up into the arms of the one she had been searching for, feeling enveloped in light's gentle hold.
Light, running through her, energizing…
"Tailmon, chou shinka! Angewomon!"
The white cat pressed her body against Hikari's, even as it changed shape and, at least while she transformed, covered itself in a shining radiance.
That said, the evolution being as it was, the change in body shape came before the materializing outfit, and Angewomon was very much what would be described as 'hot'. So it was understandable that Hikari blushed a deep, deep crimson, and found herself questioning her own sexuality as the evolution completed.
It probably didn't help that her digimon partner found this simply incredibly cute, returning her partner's embrace tightly, Hikari's head pressed against metallic, golden feathers and soft, angelic skin; a blushing head, but not one that seemed to mind all that much.
Staying with Hikari, knowing her better, deeper, letting their love grow unhindered… and with all that cute awkwardness and blushing on her part…
This could be fun.
Wizarmon was gone, and it would never stop saddening her. But she truly had found what she had been searching for, did see a chance for new happiness, new love… when he gave his life, it was to protect Hikari as well. And for her to just spend her days in love with the dead, filled with sorrow – she knew this could not have been further from the sorcerer's wishes.
"To be with Hikari, to share all that I felt with her, even as I wish you were here with us… For this life I've been able to lead since I escaped Vamdemon's clutches, for the selfless loyalty you showed me, even though it was you who deserved more, enduring Vamdemon with me… Thank you, Wizarmon. Thank you!"
And with that, a weak, barely-noticeable shadow faded away, no longer needing to watch over concern, granting her one final message:
"Every moment I spent with you, I was happy... I truly meant that I had no regrets. Tailmon... Just enjoy life, you searched so long, it's okay to love again."
With that signal, giving her best surviving friend yet another reason to remember this day, if one that could be more confusing, the angel planted a soft kiss on Hikari's welcoming cheek.
Truly, this was yet another August 1st worth remembering.